testers wanted More proper testing - better Armbian experience

[pfeerick]

This is a good idea. Everybody heard about Vanilla Kernel, but what is it. Mainline is a good expression.

 

I can relate to this... when I first came across the Armbian project after jumping on the ARM bandwagon again after being a RPi and CubieTruck user... with the corresponding "don't know nothing about ARM on linux" level of understanding (which is slowly improving due to the pain64... er, pine64).... I had a WTF!! moment when faced with the legacy and vanilla options, and did exactly what tk said... i though vanilla must be the better option, and then very quickly went back and downloaded the legacy image when I realised it probably wasn't the best option! :-O So the change in wording to mainline, addition of 'desktop|server' text where relevant, and the extra notes guiding on whether the user should be downloading the legacy or mainline flavour is very much appreciated. 

 

I like the cubietruck better, because it is more a general explanation, wereas with clearfog you go into a detail and with each update you might forget to change this wahtsorever.

 

I agree, the cubietruck page is better than the clearfog one.. 

 

I now have (finally!!) a 2GB pine64, so will get to trying out the latest beta image on both of my boards shortly.... 

[zador.blood.stained]

Also IMO it's not right calling default branch for Clearfog "legacy", it should be called "LTS" instead.

[Igor]

 

 

Also IMO it's not right calling default branch for Clearfog "legacy", it should be called "LTS" instead.

 

Added to exceptions, anywhere else?

[zador.blood.stained]

Added to exceptions, anywhere else?

Don't think so, out of all supported boards currently this is the only case where vendor provides 4.x kernel (and it's 4.4 LTS which is good in terms of security fixes)

[Igor]

Another change, currently manifests only here:

 

https://www.armbian.com/olimex-lime-2-emmc/

Added sligtly changed "Getting started" to right from "Stable releases" ... where I add wifi connect manual. Now we have 3x "getting started" and all are pointing to different page What do you think is the best? 

[zador.blood.stained]

Another change, currently manifests only here:

 

https://www.armbian.com/olimex-lime-2-emmc/

Added sligtly changed "Getting started" to right from "Stable releases" ... where I add wifi connect manual. Now we have 3x "getting started" and all are pointing to different page What do you think is the best? 

Hm. I would prefer to split it like this:

• Info for upgrading from Lime2 to Lime2-eMMC - on the first tab (stable releases) above or below download buttons
• Getting started tab - too much info, main things are: how to unpack, how to write to SD card, how to login. If anything doesn't work as expected, then user should go to a separate troubleshooting page at docs.armbian.com

[Tido]

In order to keep Website maintenance low (and errors), a very big portion of the Site should be standardized accross all devices.

 

Only you guys can maintain the Website - so SBC specific stuff (that can change) should be kept in the docs - so people can help to improve missing /obsolete data.

So you already have the: Board family info  | for this. Use it.

 

Beside, this: To get full lime2-emmc support with access to eMMC and stable settings  |  does alienate me - so the image is not good per se ?

 

Edit:

 

Getting started tab - too much info,

This information should be in one place - the docs. And if someone comes to the forum, guide this person there if it is obviously.

IT is already very compact "the getting started"

Edited December 22, 2016 by Tido

[Igor]

Bump. Getting started -> Quick stat with just few things (refreshing only lime2emmc). The problem is that first users shall not be scared ... and if they see only few sentences they will at least read those while manual is usually the last resort. Unfortunatelly after asking things around on forum, email, facebook, irc, ...

 

It's everything in the docs except such things:

switch($LINUXFAMILY){
    case 'sun7i':
        $LEGACY_TEXT="Optimal for multimedia and desktop usage scenarios.";
        $MAINLINE_TEXT="Optimal for headless server usage. See <a href=http://linux-sunxi.org/Linux_mainlining_effort>status matrix</a> for detailed comparison";
        break;}

Beside, this: To get full lime2-emmc support with access to eMMC and stable settings  |  does alienate me - so the image is not good per se ?

 

As written. The images are the same as for normal Lime2. They are good and stable for lime2 while for lime2emmc you might run into troubles if you don't exchange uboot ...

[zador.blood.stained]

As written. The images are the same as for normal Lime2. They are good and stable for lime2 while for lime2emmc you might run into troubles if you don't exchange uboot ...

I don't think there are any stability issues, so better rephrase it to "full functionality"

 

 

On a related topic - is there enough space to fit full release names like "Debian Jessie server" or "Ubuntu Xenial desktop" in the download buttons? For inexperienced users the upstream distribution name should be clearly visible (Debian/Ubuntu).

[zador.blood.stained]

Also I'm starting to think that 6 download buttons on a single page is too many, so it may be better to split "Stable" tab into "Server" and "Desktop" tabs, and highlight these 2 tabs to make them stand out from the others.

[Igor]

like this?

Another idea is to push "kernel tab" at the end / below "quick start"

[zador.blood.stained]

Looks good to me, but it may be even better if tabs had icons and outline. And the gray box at the right may go to the new tab (maybe named "Info" and with content pulled from lib.docs based on board name)

[Igor]

Icons are not possible in TABS within the plugin I use (shortcode ultimate) so I would need to do some manual adjustments.

 

The gray box are just links and they are feed from here. 

 

Continuing in a day ...

[Tido]

I also like this approach of a landing page before you come to chose your download.

Would make it necessary, that there is no direct link to the download page per device - might need JavaScript or such.

[Igor]

You mean that all how-to text should come between (in our case) title and download links? The main problem is that we have more than one download options per board so some kind of choosing must be done ... 

[Tido]

even more blunt
If you klick download - you will see the landing page first, before you can chose your SBC with something like this:
 
Getting started:
Many users waste hours because of bad POWER SOURCE  (a little picture of a barrel jack would be great here)
Many users waste hours because of bad SDcard (make sure you have two (2) or read our introduction and test) (little pic SDcard)
Legacy kernel - optimal for multimedia and desktop usage scenarios
Mainline kernel - optimal for headless server usage
 
Continue to download page..

 

 

another idea to get the message over and just one place to maintain

[pfeerick]

@Igor: Um.... I know what a "Server" is, but wwhat's a "Dexsktop"...  ?

 

Quick start looks nice... my question as Mr Dumb User (knowing there is more stuff around) is where is the link to the board specific documentation from the board download page now? 

[Igor]

@Tido

Ahaa, now I understand. I can start this from scratch on a separate page, not on current live which will get only some minor fixes now. For this we might need to establish a design / UX design team for this   Next year.

 

@pfeerick

 

Typo & permission issue and forgotten cron job

[zador.blood.stained]

@Tido

 

I don't like having an extra step, but troubleshooting info or links may be integrated, for example, on download/donate pages (I mean here)

[Tido]

Well, how often do you download an image, I guess this extra step won't hurt you.

 

on download/donate pages:

but then, instead of encourage to spend some money - you would distract the person with technical, important information.

[zador.blood.stained]

@Tido

For me buttons on the "download" page are expected to start the download. Some web sites open a separate download page (or a separate donate page), but I'm not a fan of this idea.

Still, for me troubleshooting guide should be clearly visible, but should not be overwhelming for the end users, IMO people won't like much if you throw them a wall of text instead of the OS image.

[pfeerick]

Or perhaps a tab reorder...  i.e. change it to Quick start, Server, Desktop, Remarks, Hardware Info, Nightly Releases, Kernels (as relevant to the release, naturally). The quick start page already mentions SD quality and power supply concerns... so maybe a minor expansion of that of say one sentence and/or links to the full treatment? Then you get hit by the quick start first, and then have to go to the server or desktop tab to actually see the links to those releases?

[Tido]

@zador
 

Getting started:
Many users waste hours because of bad POWER SOURCE  (a little picture of a barrel jack would be great here)
Many users waste hours because of bad SDcard (make sure you have two (2) or read our introduction and test) (little pic SDcard)
Legacy kernel - optimal for multimedia and desktop usage scenarios
Mainline kernel - optimal for headless server usage
 
Continue to download page..

I do not consider the above as a "a wall of text", but as the minimum before you start to download. This way you really get the attention.

The above text should then of course be removed from the final download page i.e. this one  (Quick start). The "Getting started" sits on top in the greyish link bar for more information.

[pfeerick]

I don't know if we're still (mis)using this thread for posting feedback, but here goes... will edit post as I do more images/boards/tests... I aim to hopefully run a quick test say every two weeks or as requested. 

Board            Branch              Boot   Ethernet   WiFi   HDMI   Install   Image/Date   Performed by
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pine64 (2GB)     Legacy/Xenial        Yes     Yes       N/T    Yes     Yes     5.24.161221    pfeerick
pine64 (2GB)     Mainline/Xenial      Yes     Yes       N/T    No      Yes     5.24.161221    pfeerick
pine64 (1GB)     Legacy/Xenial        Yes     Yes       Yes    Yes     Yes     5.24.161221    pfeerick
pine64 (1GB)     Mainline/Xenial      Yes     Yes       N/S    No      Yes     5.24.161221    pfeerick

N/T - not tested

N/S - not supported

 

I presume by install you mean that the first-run install experience ran successfully? 

 

Also, I was going to try armbianmonitor -u to see if anything useful was logged re: HDMI not working on the mainline (or is there NO support for even the terminal there??), but I was rewarded with a "503 Over Quota" html source dump message when I tried... I didn't break it... promise! 

 

Hope everyone is enjoying their Christmas... 

[tkaiser]

I received an annoying personal message (again) asking for help since it seems OS images are exchanged. Download page for OPi PC links to OPi PC Plus image. Somewhere an explanation 'how to get full functionality of this board' has been written (missing exchanging contents in /etc/armbian-release too -- see update-motd.d/10-header and also some real functionality that want to rely on contents here). I wonder how people should find these bits of information how to gain 'full functionality' and why that's necessary?

 

BTW: 'Quick start' reads 'Normal boot (with DHCP) takes up to 35 seconds with a class 6 SD CARD and cheapest board.' So we now encourage users again to use crappy SD cards?

[zador.blood.stained]

@tkaiser

 

Download pages need a lot of work, and part of this can be changed only by Igor currently.

 

Updated /etc/armbian-release will be installed together with new board support package.

 

IMO these instructions should be placed into a script before the next stable release, but I'm still not sure if providing one image for several boards is a good idea, though it's up to Igor since build host time and download server disk space doesn't come for free out of thin air.

[tkaiser]

IMO these instructions should be placed into a script before the next stable release, but I'm still not sure if providing one image for several boards is a good idea

 

Well, providing less images is perfectly ok as long as users can cope with and know what to expect. We already have firstrun and especially check_first_login.sh where we query the user before starting with Armbian. This could also be the place to ask for such stuff (and do all the necessary changes in one single step afterwards). But then we could also revert back to 'one image per $LINUXFAMILY' which has also some drawbacks if someone rolls out a fleet of devices.

 

In other words: I would prefer to discuss things first, then communicate, then change. Not the other way around.

[zador.blood.stained]

IMO for better user experience stable releases should be made as before - each variant for each board, while nightly releases can be "compacted" to provide one image + switching instructions for several boards.

[zador.blood.stained]

@tkaiser, @Igor

 

Any objections against adding an issue template like this to our build script repository?

IMO it would be nice to keep the issues clean and split build script support from everything else.

So far I came up with this:

 

 

Please use this issue tracker only for reporting bugs or requesting enhancements to the Armbian build script:

 - requesting changes to the kernel configuration,
 - requesting changes to the default package lists,
 - discussing the kernel and/or u-boot patches,
 - discussing Armbian specific customizations made at image build time,
 - discussing changes and enhancements to the image creation process,
 - etc.

Please use the Armbian forum (https://forum.armbian.com/) for:

 - reporting boot failures (please read [the documentation](https://docs.armbian.com/User-Guide_Getting-Started/) first!),
 - asking for help with Armbian if it is **not** related to building kernel and/or OS image (please use forum search and Google search first!),
 - asking for support of new hardware,
 - etc.

Please remove the text above before opening an issue. 

 

 

[Igor]

I added lime2emmc this way and merged opi pc and opi pc+ since they are fully back compatible without changing anything, or I am missing something? I will not go further into reduction - we have been there ...

 

If a user can't read and ask on personal comm such question it shall be banned or at least fully ignored. I don't read such emails anymore, but they get information that there is no one 2 one technical support and wish them good day. Even we will have perfect download UX, there will be folks, which will try to abuse everything what is possible to abuse.

 

Any objections against adding an issue template like this to our build script repository?

 

None. Anything that helps reducing load is helpful.

 

'Quick start' reads 'Normal boot (with DHCP) takes

 

Not intentionally. I was fucusing on structural changes, adjusting scripts which now mostly pulls data from git, download server, exception table, ... and create a static download page. I was doing the coding part and it's not done yet. We got a new server two days ago with full access and now things are changing / upgrading ... again.